As businesses begin to open their doors after the COVID-19 shutdown orders, many are thinking about not only where their business is heading but what people they need to get there.

At Affinity HR Group, many of our clients have been making hard decisions about retaining staff in a down market. The decision to let employees go is never an easy one, and to do so in such an uncertain time is difficult. I have yet to meet a business owner who is not emotionally impacted by the staffing decisions they face. 

We've also seen clients recognize that with great turbulence comes the opportunity to correct problems that may be lingering within their organizations. On one recent industry video call, a business owner asked, “How many of you have discovered the weak links in your company since the pandemic hit? You know who's not cutting it, don't you?" 

Virtually every owner was able to see with great clarity who are their rock stars and who are their weak links. The consensus among those in attendance was that this is the right time to make strategic staffing decisions to build the right team to move their businesses forward during recovery.

Here are four tips to get the ball rolling:

1) Define what you need. It is difficult to think strategically when operating in crisis mode. Workplace interruptions and the push for remote work have realigned not just what employers do but how they do it.

The lessons learned during this time may point to a new direction for your company as you work to minimize market or organizational threats and maximize and prepare for future opportunities. As you contemplate that realignment, defining what you need from your people to move forward is essential. 

That may require re-tooling and developing the skills and capabilities of your current employees. Perhaps it will require letting go of some staff who lack the competencies or behaviors that you will need. And perhaps it will require hiring different talent for what your new future requires.

Now is the time to think critically about what and who you will need on your team. You may not have the financial certainty at this point to hire new talent, but by defining what you will need today, you can start the process of creating space and structure for that talent. Doing so means that when you can afford to hire, you'll be clear on what you're looking for.  

2) Fill your funnel early. Under the best of circumstances, finding and hiring the best talent takes time. Over the past few years, Affinity's average fill time has remained 45-60 days, and that was during times of historically low unemployment rates.

With economic disruption and unemployment at record highs, we don't know what the fill time rate will be going forward, but there is a silver lining: In recent years, many employers have felt the need to hire substandard talent to fill critical positions because there was simply not enough talent available with the skills necessary to perform at the level needed.

We anticipate that current market disruptions mean that, for the first time in many years, there is going to be a large pool of highly-qualified talent available that was not available pre-pandemic—talent that may be open to entertaining new opportunities who may not have felt that way two months ago.

Once you've determined what you need, don't wait to start looking. Even in this market, quality talent is still challenging to find and takes time.

3) Use technology. Despite recent efforts to ease up mandated stay-in-place orders, most indicators point to the continued need to socially distance for the months and perhaps year ahead.

With new-found experience managing a remote workforce, many companies now have the tools and mindset to be able to identify, hire and manage remote employees. With geography being less important than before COVID-19, your pool of potential candidates exponentially increases.

Now is the time to start embracing video interviewing. Many platforms make it easy to meet and manage your employees face-to-face without leaving your home or office. We believe the new normal will find many companies using expanded technology for both video interviewing and managing ongoing performance as a standard practice for some, if not all, of their open positions.

4) Make offers, even if you're not quite ready. You can lock in A-team players now with the understanding that onboarding may look a little different and may be slightly postponed. Consider offering delayed start dates, sign-on bonuses for delayed starts, and remote work or online training.

Things are uncertain for everyone, so candidates will be understanding of extended onboarding timelines. By getting commitment on both sides of the table, there's less risk of losing them to another offer.

By now, anyone who's paying attention to workplace diversity, equity and inclusion knows that gender and racial representation are essential to organizational growth. Studies have shown time and time again that companies with diverse leadership teams are more profitable and innovative. Employees are also more engaged, and customer retention is higher. 

Based on a study by legendary management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, when an organization has more gender and ethnic diversity, the likelihood of financial outperformance in the market is an average of 35 percent greater.  

Achieving parity is a process

Diversity has proven to increase the bottom line. In 2017, companies in the S&P 500 closed the year at an increase of 19.45 percent. At that time,16 companies did not have a single woman on the board or in the C-suite. By the end of 2019, every company had at least one woman on their board — and closed the year at a nearly 30 percent increase. Plain and simple, diversity at the top is good for business. 

So if the data is this crystal clear, why are women and people of color still so underrepresented in executive leadership? Recently, Mogul, the global diversity recruitment company of which I am CEO, held a "Diversity in Executive Search" webinar about this topic. Cathrin Stickney, the founder and CEO of Parity.org, a nonprofit that advocates for representation of women and people of color at the highest levels of business, shared insights with Mogul members. 

She outlined that achieving parity in organizational leadership is a multi-pronged process and specifically highlighted the importance of making progress across representation. Recruitment is a foundational step in increasing representation. If you’re in leadership and looking to add diversity in your workforce — and you absolutely should be — there are five easily implementable executive recruitment strategies that you can take advantage of to give you the best chance to hire the top talent. Many of these I've come across in my personal executive search practice, and it's changed the way we recruit at Mogul.

1. Eliminate unconscious bias at every opportunity. Unconscious bias is present everywhere and affects everything from recruitment to compensation, mentoring and promotion. Bias can create unintended setbacks in designing a truly diverse and inclusive workplace.

2. Be deliberate in your recruiting process. During her session, Stickney noted that there are no two ways around this; if you want to design the best team, you must be deliberate. This means creating gender and ethnically neutral job descriptions, taking out any overly casual or “bro” language, and eliminating age and other identifiers in your applications. Effective neutral job descriptions will attract top talent, and the removal of identifiers will allow you to look at their qualifications as objectively as possible.

3. Put together a diverse interview panel. Bringing minorities into your interview process shows your candidate that you understand the importance of different perspectives. In 2014, Intel began requiring that interview panels for all new hires include at least two members of underrepresented communities. Since then, Intel's diversity numbers have shot up. Before the new requirement, 31 percent of new hires were either women or people of color; two years later, that number was 45 percent.

4. Hold your search firm or recruiter accountable. We hear a lot about diverse slates. But, as Stickney noted, you can have a seemingly diverse slate and still never hire a woman. You also could have 50-50 gender parity in your slate, but if everybody comes from the same ethnic or cultural background, that's not true diversity. Stickney defines true diversity as a representative slate. When working with an executive recruiter, request candidates who represent the gender and racial makeup of your country or region and make the search firm you've hired commit to bring a representative slate of qualified candidates and hold them accountable to deliver what you want. Top executive recruiters will have an expanded network of diverse individuals, so a good rule of thumb for an effective representative slate should include 50 percent women and 40 percent people of color. Don't settle for the sake of time, and push back if you don't get what you've asked for.

5. Be aware of common myths and see through them. Stickney pointed out three common myths within hiring practices that need to be addressed. The first is that top talent went only to top schools. I say this as a Harvard Business and Yale graduate, but there are plenty of incredible people who have risen through the ranks via their own grit and tenacity who have never received a degree. I certainly have my own bias when a fellow Yalie’s application hits my desk, but anyone who has hired enough people will agree that top schools matter less than the person’s passion for their work.

Second, Stickney points out that "culture fit" is a buzzy phrase that needs redefining. Hiring for culture fit by way of personality fit only asks things like: Are you like me? Can I get along with you? Can we socialize together? Do I understand you? Do you understand me? While it's important to know if you'll be able to work with someone on a day-to-day basis, these criteria should carry only so much weight. Through the hiring process, you should define your culture by company values and match the candidates who share those values. 

The third myth is the notion that there are not enough women and people of color that qualify for the open executive and board seats. As Stickney pointed out, this is a network problem. We all need to continue to diversify our networks if we want to find better candidates. There are plenty of qualified women capable of moving up the ladder. It's a matter of being active on professional platforms like Mogul and LinkedIn, and diversifying your network to find them.

Progress is happening, but slowly

A final word on the progress we're all making together. As noted in the 2019 Spencer Stuart Board Index, a record-breaking 59 percent of new directors are diverse, and women constitute 46 percent of the new directors coming in. Women and minorities now represent a combined 39 percent of all S&P 500 directors. Yes, it's a new milestone, but it's still far from 50 percent.

Creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce is a top-down effort, and I believe organizations need to be publicly committed to it. Being committed to diversity and inclusion allows top talent to know where you stand, and lets your current employees, suppliers and customers know you are a company that does the right thing. Posting about your successes on your public-facing channels highlights that you are a champion of diversity and will attract the best and the brightest to your organization.

No matter whether it is a small or prosperous company, everybody wants to sell more. But how to achieve that result? How to increase sales team performance? What techniques can be applied to sell more? Let’s have a look at this question in greater detail.

What Is Sales Performance?

This term means how effective the members of your sales team are when it comes to setting goals and achieving them. Sales revenue is the main factor that helps measure performance. However, there are some other metrics that can also influence this indicator, such as the amount of repeat business and time spent per client.

A service or product can’t sell itself (no matter how qualitative it is). That’s why your success is contingent on the professionalism of your sales team that requires at least one member who understands how to sell and knows for sure how to increase your revenue.

What Factors Affect Sales Performance?

If you are a revenue-based company, you need to do your best to drive sales performance. But first, you need to understand what particular factors influence sales performance indicators:

• Sagging economy. A poor economy is probably the main reason that can cause a drop in sales. In such a scenario, business owners have no choice and are made to decrease the pricing policy until the situation changes for the better.
• Bad individual performance. If the members of your sales team aren’t motivated, in all likelihood, the results will be poor.
• Poor sales forecasting. Placing unrealistic expectations can lead to poor sales performance.
• Incorrect sales pipeline. If the sales pipeline is too long and improperly organized, this also negatively influences the general sales performance.

What Are the Best Strategies That Can Improve Your Sales Team Performance?

Now, it is time to move on to discussing the most effective ways to improve sales performance. If you don’t use them, we recommend paying attention to these techniques. Thanks to them, you’ll finally understand how to improve your sales team’s performance.

Provide the right sales tools

Repetitive tasks take too much time. T make your teamwork more effective, you should choose the right sales tools that can improve their productivity and help them automate some processes.

The best thing that you can do for your team is finding the right CRM platform that can significantly reduce the amount of time spent on time-consuming and repetitive tasks. One of such tools is Nimble CRM: a powerful CRM platform that can automate a variety of processes and help your sales reps sell more.

Incorporate one-on-one coaching

When you keep coaching your reps, the results will definitely be much better. Keeping an eye on the latest achievements in this niche offers a variety of advantages. You probably know that the area of sales is constantly evolving. So you need to make sure that your sales team is up-to-date with the current trends. You should always stay informed on the latest achievements in this niche and organize coaching sessions for your sales team.

Improve your team communication

If you want your sales team to be more effective, you should always find the time to talk to each member of your team. You need to keep track of how they are performing. It goes without saying that a face-to-face meeting with each sales rep can help them perform much better. Moreover, it’s a superb opportunity to find out where there is room for improvement.

Always involve your sales team in the company’s vision

Motivation is a crucially important factor that can help your sales reps be more effective. Each member of your team should feel significant. You should show that each sales rep plays an important role in the company’s success. Let them know that all of them are directly responsible for the success of the whole team.

To achieve that goal, organize team-building meetings where each of them can get acquainted with each other and you’ll be able to get to know them better. As a result, you’ll easily find out how to improve the performance of your sales team members.

Find and hire the right people

The best step you can take to boost sales is to hire the right people. Make sure you are dealing with true professionals in this niche. Your HR manager should be very demanding about choosing experts. A professional sales rep is an optimistic, competitive and creative person with a strong need for achievement.

Set specific goals – break objectives down into smaller, achievable tasks

Setting the right goals is the main formula for success. When you use the right CRM tool, it will be easier to measure the activity of your team against the goals. You’ll see detailed stats that show the performance of each salesperson for the chosen metrics.

Moreover, when you create structured goals and track the progress, you’ll make your sales team more motivated. You should regularly meet your company’s leaders to make sure they know their goals and are doing their best to achieve them.

Teach your sales team to sell to customer needs and how to be customer-centric

Your goal is to implement a customer-centric strategy – the most effective sales strategy that puts the needs of your clients at the center of the whole buying process. When you are a client-focused company, you’ll definitely gain customer loyalty, boost sales, and increase your referrals.

When coaching, address key performance indicators

Key Performance Indicators (or KPIs) are a must-have tool that allows the sales team to monitor and evaluate the progress. Simply put, KPIs allow you to focus on key activities that are very important for your business.

To define the right KPIs that will definitely resonate with your business, use the following tips:

• Define what results you expect;
• Focus on quantitative measurements;
• Never measure more than 10 KPIs;
• Always measure KPIs every month or even every week;

Be a leader, not a micromanager

You need to be a leader for your team, not a friend or a micromanager. A good leader can inspire the employees and has faith in them. Leadership styles are numerous, but truly effective managers understand how to strike a good balance between managing employees, the network, and themselves.

Work on creating a culture of high performance

Company culture is a very broad term; it is not about offering different perks to every team member. It is the set of behaviors that can determine how everything is done at your company. Your goal is to create a high-performance culture that can help your company achieve the best possible goals. The main goal of a high-performance culture is to help a company achieve much better financial and nonfinancial goals.

To create a high-performance company culture you need to create impactful employee surveys, always gather constructive feedback from employees and empower the company leaders to embody company qualities and values.

Two reasons we decide not to decide:

#1. People-pleasing:

Excessive people-pleasing leads to indecision, anxiety, resentment, and misery. After all, how can you fully know what others want?

People-pleasers can’t say no for fear of disappointing. Anyone who can’t say no lets others drive decisions.

If you can’t make decisions, someone else runs your life.

#2. Loss aversion:

The fear of loss maintains the status quo.

“For most people, the fear of losing $100 is more intense than the hope of gaining $150.” Daniel Kahneman

People lie to avoid loss about twice as often as to achieve gain. (Schindler and Pfattheicher)

3 ways to lean into decisiveness:

“Decisiveness is a characteristic of high-performing men and women. Almost any decision is better than no decision at all.” Brian Tracy

The decision not to make a decision is a decision.

#1. Create momentum.

Momentum is built on a series of small decisions that achieve a clear goal.

Indecision leads to lethargy, discouragement, and defeat.

“It’s never the size of the problem that is the problem. It’s a lack of momentum.” John Maxwell

#2. Say no:

A coachee, in his youth, couldn’t say no and ended up traveling with his girlfriend’s family on vacation. He felt miserable.

He since learned that saying no earns more respect than always saying yes.

The first time I said no to my boss was painful.

#3. Get real:

People get over poor decisions when you own them, correct them, and keep your eye on the larger objective. (Inspired by a recent coaching conversation.)

A strong leader in the workplace can bolster a small business's push for success.

Inquiry is a powerful motivator. We use it to fuel conversations, problem-solve, and, ultimately, improve sales performance.

High-value questions are a driving force to much-needed mental shifts — especially in today’s environment. When your mindset changes, so does your behavior. As sales leaders, we can’t control market conditions, but we can influence a few things — like choices.

Below are five questions we challenge sales leaders to ask their salespeople every week if they want to improve sales performance, fill their funnel full of new prospects, and increase customer loyalty.

Questions Sales Leaders Should Ask Sellers

1. Are You Dedicating Time Every Day to Connect with New Prospects?

There are plenty of online resources to help sellers’ network, gain business insights, share ideas that are working, and identify decision makers. Sellers must have a strategic plan utilizing available resources to connect with new prospects.

If sellers would dedicate at least 30 minutes a day to focus on writing relevant emails, social media posts, and preparing voicemail scripts, they would have a minimum of 2.5 hours of intense prospect development. Talking about a strategy is not implementing a strategy — it must be scheduled daily.

Ask them to dedicate the time they would have spent commuting to their job towards developing new Target Accounts, and they will thrive in setting online appointments. Taking the steps towards developing new business is a choice.

2. Do You Have a Meaningful Relationship at the Customer Level with Your Agency Accounts?

A sure way to stay at 60-70% of budget is to wait around for the media buyers to get instructions and then beat you up in negotiating. Top-performing sellers are helping customers develop creative strategies at the customer level. Sellers should get deep into accounts until they find the person that is desperate for results.

Make a difference in that area, and you become a dictate buy. Many sellers are afraid of going beyond the buyer because they’re afraid of rocking the boat. Don’t go around the agency. Go through them with their blessing because you are prepared for a higher-level conversation that can benefit both the customer and the agency. Determination to develop a meaningful relationship at the customer level is a choice.

3. Can You Define the Needs of All Your Key and Target Accounts?

Our customers’ needs are frequently changing, now more than ever. They have real challenges. There’s no better time to share strategies that make a difference than when you have a prospect or customer in distress.

Sellers need to put ALL of their focus on Key and Target Accounts. Now is the time to earn customers for life. These customers will remember true partners who performed for them during their worst times. Partners can listen to the problems, be a resource for solutions, and implement them with a focus on ROI. Serving your customers on the front end of the process and not waiting for them to come around and spend money is a choice.  

4. What Kind of Ideas Are You Generating for Your Prospects and Customers?

There needs to be a premium effort made in having quality brainstorming sessions. There are so many innovations being made in the business community. Are we a part of those innovations? Are we at least a part of the conversation and sharing ideas focused on marketing those innovations?

If we don’t want to be treated like a commodity, we must be a part of the building the solution and not just the vendor that can provide an audience. Developing ideas and utilizing the talented people around you to help expand on those ideas for your customers is a choice.

5. What Solutions Are You Currently Implementing to Your Keys and Target Accounts?

Here’s a true performance question because it proves their quality of work.

• What have you done to help your customers?

If sellers are making a difference for their customers, there will be evidence of it. Are we defining success, measuring it, and taking credit for it? Prospect and customers love case studies, and not only do case studies help us retain customers, but they help us generate new ones.

• Know your assignment from the customer
• Execute it flawlessly
• Capture your successes
• Encourage everyone involved in the sales process to share stories and write them down

Our business community needs hope right now. Your sellers can share their own success and share successes from around the country, but they have to capture them. Gathering a strong collection of case studies and testimonials is a choice.

Accelerate Your Sales Performance Journey

These conversations with your sellers all have a common theme. Sellers and sales managers must make a choice when beginning the journey towards top sales performance. That choice requires a top-shelf sales process. What’s going to happen this week, and when will it be accomplished?

Few of these strategies can be accomplished in a week and they don’t have to be. However, the steps toward success must be planned and executed on a weekly basis. If sellers begin now and are capable enough to be successful, they’ll have full funnels of new prospects, loyal customers, and their “unfair share of business.” It’s a choice — make the right one.  

Leadership is on our minds lately. And it seems we’re not alone. 

In times of turmoil and disruptive change, leaders are more valuable than ever. They provide guidance, confidence, and stability for teams facing uncertainty. They chart new roadmaps for scenarios where none currently exist. Strong leaders are indispensable at any time, but especially in this moment.

But leaders are also facing a steep uphill climb. We’ve written that it’s hard to be in sales right now, and it is especially hard to be in sales leadership. Teams look to you for answers you might not have. Many employees are nervous about their futures, and that weight is felt by their managers. As Art Petty wrote recently at SmartBrief, leadership can feel isolating and awkward at times like these, and as he notes, it’s not always something that’s regularly discussed in the workplace (or virtual workplace, as it may be).

“It’s more of a quiet problem,” he writes, “and something slightly ironic given the constant involvement anyone in management has with team members and peers.”

Let’s shed some light on this quiet problem. Like we said, we’re not alone in thinking about leadership, as there’s been quite a bit of helpful content published around the topic recently. Here’s a roundup of resources and content from peers, experts, and researchers.

Rising to the Occasion with Sales Leadership

This week’s trending content includes a new sales leadership report, team-building advice, video tips on strengthening trust, and more.

Excerpts from Leadership Experts

Mr. Petty, who wrote the aforementioned article for SmartBrief, runs the Art Petty Group, which specializes in emerging leader development. After addressing the challenges faced by today’s leaders, he offers some helpful tips, such as:

• Accept it’s not all bad operating as a misfit. You’re in a unique position to effect change; embrace it!
• Reframe your sense of mission and purpose. “Accept that your job is less about belonging and more about creating that sense of belonging and purpose for those on your team.”
• Create a “kitchen cabinet.” Petty describes this as an informal group of trusted advisors within your organization with whom you can collaborate and share ideas. You don’t need to go it alone.
• Focus on leading with curiosity. Escape from the restraints of “how we’ve always done it” and start to ask “what if” more.
• Create structured listening sessions to help you refocus. Petty recommends quarterly one-on-ones framed around three questions: What’s working? What’s not working? What do you need from me to help you succeed?

Additionally, management consultant Liz Kislik wrote an article for Forbes last week on how to be an aligned leader who keeps the team together. Her advice, at a high level:

• Clarify and communicate who you want to be.
• Work to understand your team.
• Take actions that match up with your values.Create safety for team members.
• Integrate other voices as a source for your own feedback. 

New Report on the State of Sales Leadership

The folks at Brooks Group recently released their Sales Leadership Report 2020, which touches on trends and insights across four cornerstones of high-performing sales organizations: Talent; Training & Development; Leading, Managing & Coaching; Standards of Work & Processes.

The entire report is worth reading to get a handle on where things stand. A few tidbits that stood out to me:

• Only 29% of respondents strongly agreed that the sales leaders in their organizations are well-equipped to succeed in their roles.
• 73% reported a moderate or substantial decline in sales pipeline due to Coronavirus.
• The No. 1 skill gap that leaders would like to close on their team is prospecting for new accounts. (We shared some guidance on this subject in last week’s Big Deal column.)

Tips on Building a Strong Sales Team

A leader is only as good as their team. Getting the right people in place is essential, and requires a different set of criteria than it did even a few years ago. To that end, Michael Maximoff offers guidance on how to build a successful B2B sales team on the Belkins blog. He lays out a three-step process that involves identifying the right team structure (The Assembly Line vs. The Pod vs. The Island), defining a growth strategy, and empowering through technology.

Breaking Down Sales Leadership Stereotypes

In his usual no-nonsense fashion, Anthony Iannarino targets and dismantles stereotypes about sales and its leadership. As one example, there is the notion that sales managers are tyrannical, which he views as largely inaccurate.

“If you spend time with sales leaders and sales managers, you’ll find that they know the people in their charge exceptionally well,” Anthony says. “They know their spouse’s names, as well as their children. They know about their past, how they grew up, where they went to school, and what they care about most. They know their strengths, weaknesses, and liabilities. They also know what they need from them as their sales manager. In short, they care about the salespeople that make up their team.”

With caring as a core foundation, any sales leader will be equipped to succeed.

Sales Leaders Speak on Building Trust

Speaking of stereotypes, the standard, sleazy “used car salesman” caricature was one that our collection of sales leaders addressed when they went on camera to talk about building trust in sales. These five videos feature sharp insights from experienced pros who discuss key focuses like maximizing the sales discovery call, cultivating consistency across the organization, and embracing new technologies to drive stronger connections.

Sales Leaders Are Never Alone

It’s true that being a leader can feel isolating at times, but know that you can always lean on the experience and guidance of your colleagues and peers. Follow the advice above and you can confidently lead your team into whatever lies ahead. 

A sales manager is the person responsible for leading and coaching a team of salespeople. A sales manager's tasks often include assigning sales territories, setting quotas, mentoring the members of her sales team, assigning sales training, building a sales plan, and hiring and firing salespeople. In large companies, sales quotas and plans are usually set at the executive level, and a manager's main responsibility is to see to it that her salespeople meet those quotas and uphold any policies passed down from above.

Some sales managers were managers from other departments who transferred to sales, but the majority are top-tier salespeople who were promoted to a management position. Because these former salespeople have little or no management training or experience, their main challenge is allowing their sales team to do the selling and limiting themselves to offering whatever guidance the salespeople need.

Avoid Micromanagement

Because a sales manager's compensation is tied to how many sales her team makes, she's highly motivated to get her salespeople producing. It often leads to a scenario where she micromanages her sales team, hanging over their shoulders and constantly asking for updates. It's especially common with former star salespeople, who tend to want to feel in control of every situation – particularly where their own salary is involved.

Unfortunately, salespeople tend to be independent and self-motivated and don't work well in this kind of environment. As a result, their performance will suffer, leading to a vicious cycle where the sales manager becomes more and more frantic as her team fails to meet their quota. So sales management is a balancing act between providing guidance and direction without taking this to extremes.

Learn Human Resources Skills

Sales managers who are responsible for hiring and firing members of their sales team must learn some human resources skills. If a sales manager doesn't know how to critically review a resume, ask probing questions in the interview, or catch any red flags during the process, she will probably end up hiring salespeople who look good on paper but fail to produce. Firing an employee is never easy, but a sales manager must know when one of her salespeople simply isn't working out – either because he isn't a good fit for the company, or because he isn't a good fit for a sales position at all.

Knowing how to get her team motivated is a critical part of sales management. A smart sales manager has several tools in her arsenal, ranging from silly prizes like paper crowns to major monetary rewards for big producers. She must also know how to motivate a poor producer into getting back on track. And she must recognize when the problem is not a lack of motivation but something more basic, such as the lack of a specific sales skill.

Understand the Big Picture

Sales managers must also understand the 'big picture.' In all but the smallest companies, sales managers are at the middle management level of responsibility. They supervise a sales team but are supervised themselves by a higher-level manager, often at the executive level. When a sales manager's team performs well, her supervisor will often give her credit. But if a sales manager's team fails to meet their quota, that executive will expect her to provide a solution.

Have Excellent Communication Skills

A sales manager must have excellent communication skills to succeed. She must be able to understand the sales plan and explain it clearly to her sales teams. She must also be able to understand her salespeople's needs and communicate those needs to the executive level. If a problem such as an unrealistic quota arises, she must be able to go to bat for her salespeople with upper management and get the situation resolved. When her salespeople do well, she must show them that their hard work is appreciated, and when they falter she must uncover the reason and fix it.

The purpose of a sales manager is to provide their salespeople with everything they need to succeed, including coaching, training, and motivation. The actions of a successful sales manager can include anything from overseeing the onboarding of a new sales team member to firing a salesperson who wasn't ever going to cut it.

The most crucial role of a sales manager is a coach for the members of their team. A salesperson who is suddenly not making enough appointments might not realize that their script has gone stale and they sound robotic during cold calls. In these kinds of situations, the sales manager is ideally placed to both identify the problem and help to fix it.

Not all sales managers are good at coaching. Some prefer the administrative side of management, while others like to spend as much time as possible on the front lines selling. Fortunately, coaching is a skill you can pick up with practice.

Asking the Right Questions

In many ways, coaching is like selling. You'll need to figure out what is holding a salesperson back and then nudge them into realizing it for themselves. As with sales, this is often best accomplished by asking questions rather than directly telling the salesperson what they must do.

The sales manager might ask the salesperson who is struggling to make appointments questions about what their cold calling process is and what prospects say when they turn down the caller. These questions help your salesperson to identify the problem and the solution, which is a lot less confrontational than if you simply told them what to do. It also gives them a feeling of ownership of the solution, since they came up with it themselves.

Working With All Team Members

Good sales managers take time with every salesperson, not just the top and bottom performers. Every salesperson has both strengths and weaknesses; you should recognize the former and help with the latter.

While it's important to spend time with each member of the sales team, realistically most of your time will be spent with the salespeople who are having the most trouble meeting their goals. A salesperson who is trying hard but hasn't been able to succeed may need an intensive coaching program involving several weeks of observation and assistance. It will be time-consuming, but if the result is a salesperson who exceeds their quota every month instead of failing or struggling to meet it, the time will have been well spent.

Coaching won't do much good with a salesperson who doesn't realize they have a problem. Any salesperson who blames their poor performance on outside factors simply won't take a coaching program seriously. In this situation, it may be necessary to fire the person before their bad attitude contaminates the rest of the team.

Providing the Right Sales Tools

Another important part of sales management is making sure your salespeople are equipped with the right tools. These tools can make all the difference between success and failure. At the very least, they'll make selling a lot easier and your salespeople much more efficient.

First and most basic, your team should have a profile of an ideal customer. Every company has an ideal customer. The ideal customer profile is simply a list of the characteristics that your best customers and prospective customers share. This profile is incredibly useful in qualifying prospects early on and enables your salespeople to focus their time and energy on the very best potential customers.

Second, set up a sales metrics tracking plan. Tracking your sales team's metrics helps both you and them. It helps you because you can see exactly where they're strongest and weakest in their sales abilities. If a salesperson hits a slump, you can use metrics to see where in the sales process they're losing those sales.

Plus, it helps your salespeople because they can identify potential problems before they start to cut into sales. If a salesperson knows they've booked half as many appointments as usual this week, they know they need to hit the phones big-time—before their pipeline empties out.

Third, take a look at your new hire training program. Even the most experienced salespeople will need training when they join your company. At a minimum, they'll need product training and training in your company's sales software and customer relationship management (CRM) program, which encourages customers to remain loyal to your products or services.

It's also a good idea to assess a new salesperson's basic sales skills and decide how you'll help with any weak areas. The faster you get your new hire up to speed, the faster they'll be earning revenue for your company.

Ongoing Training

Evaluate your continuing training program. If a sports team doesn't train regularly, you wouldn't expect them to win. The same applies to your sales team.

Like most professionals, salespeople need to broaden their skill sets and pick up new strategies on a regular basis. But just signing your team up for random training sessions won't help. You need a plan based on what skills they most need to develop so that you can look for the best training options to fit your team's specific needs.

Establishing Differentiators

Next, consider your product or service differentiators—the factors that make your products or services different from the competition. It may require a sales meeting to find out which differentiators your salespeople use and confirm that they're consistent across the team.

If your company's marketing department hasn't come up with some “official” differentiators, work with your sales team to brainstorm at least one for each product or service. Every time your company develops a new product or service or changes an old one, you'll need to come up with new differentiators.

Meeting Company Goals

Finally, you'll need to make sure that your sales team is aware of and working in line with the company's sales goals. Your company probably has certain products or services that it wants to push because they're the most lucrative, others that are less important, and a few that are loss leaders, meaning they exist to attract new customers but don't make the company any money.

Make sure your sales team knows which products or services to prioritize during sales appointments. And work with company executives to build a compensation plan that rewards your team members for making the highest-priority sales.

HR offices face a dubious task with regards to guaranteeing a constant intake of talented individuals into the company and ensuring they recruit people who are fit for the job and the organization’s way of life. Entrepreneurs and particularly startups don’t always have the resources to outsource the whole hiring process.

And, unfortunately, most organizations do not approach recruiting the right way and are either left with a considerable amount of opportunities or workers that necessarily don’t fit in.

Consider Short Term Job Contracts

Hiring an individual can be a significant step toward the unknown, yet it shouldn’t be with contractual workers.

Contractual workers imply that you may have the employees you require quickly yet without committing in the long term. Contract jobs are the best way for job recruiters to determine whether a person is a right fit for the job.

Recruiting an individual on a contract basis is also an economical way of carrying out an applicant search.

In case the individual ends up being marvelous, you can hire them on a full-time basis.

Spend More on Hiring Costs

In case you want to discover incredible workers, you should be ready to spend more to get your job advertisement to reach a large number of people.

It is essential to pay several job recruiters to get the message out about your employment opportunities. Doing so will enable potential applicants to discover job openings quickly. Recruitment agencies have a broad knowledge of the job market offers and the talent found in specific regions.

They likewise find out about employers’ needs and objectives. That implies that they can source capable people who can carry out the duties well.

Perform Background Checks

Sometimes candidates distort their education, work history, criminal record, and business qualification. Doing so could result in legal and administrative dangers for the recruiting company.

Carrying out background checks will assist in revealing counterfeit or distorted data at an early stage of your hiring.

Carry Out Tests and Assessments

Very well structured and scientifically approved tests are a credible and fair method of evaluating applicants since they give reliable outcomes. Tests provide you with something substantial to control your recruiting choices. They offer you significant reasons to dismiss applicants, rather than depending exclusively on instinct. Test results enable recruiters to make well-informed choices.

An interview is considered successful if it recognizes the ideal individual for the job. Questions that will assist you in isolating exceptional applicants from average applicants are crucial while recruiting an employee. Asking relevant questions enables you to assess each candidate appropriately. It is beneficial to use personality tests, for instance, the Myers Briggs or the strong interest inventory.

Furthermore, it’s ideal for picking tests that analysts have checked for authenticity and relentless quality.

Provide a Decent Candidate Experience

Similarly, as you evaluate the applicants, they are examining your organization to decide if it is a decent work environment.

You can give a great impression by guaranteeing that you evaluate applications, plan interviews, and appropriately settle on your choices.

Build up a Recruiting System

Whether or not you have the whole of your occupations filled currently, you need to have a plan of how you will hire future workers. Major organizations consistently have techniques to look for and entice new applicants.

Establishing a recruitment plan laid out to discover applicants yet keep them associated through your recruiting procedure is beneficial in finding the best recruits.

It’s challenging to show signs of improvement at recruiting if you cannot confirm that the people you choose are great workers. If you have no clue where you are going, any street will lead you there. You should have an approach to determine which candidates are the most suitable.

Bottom Line

An interview is a way of finding the ideal candidate that will have a positive impact on your business. Correctly conducting the hiring interview process is fundamental for the prosperity of any business. During recruitments, you should not merely mean to fill the opening in your organization. However, it would be best if you filled the deficient areas with valuable and suitable people in improving them.

When I was a young recruiter, during my intake meetings I learned to ask the Hiring Manager, “What’s your ideal target candidate profile?” I wanted them to describe their perfect candidate — beyond the laundry list of 37 must-have requirements on the job description, tell me about all of your preferences for target companies, target schools, and personality type. I believed the more clearly I could visualize the perfect candidate, the more quickly I could please my customer: the Hiring Manager. 

There are so many things wrong with this kind of thinking.

First, the Hiring Manager is not my customer.

Second, stop calling it an intake. Please.  

Third, I’m totally setting myself up for failure by STARTING my kickoff meeting with an ideal candidate profile. Ideal — based on traditional superficial requirements and keywords — rarely exists. And I’ll end up spending too much time pushing back — based on market realities — or, worse, trying to source and engage an ideal candidate over the next few weeks, only to come up empty and having to have this kickoff conversation all over again. 

Instead, I learned and now recommend to start the conversation with a focus on the WORK first. Ask questions like: 

• What will this person do? 
• What are their goals? 
• What should they have achieved in their past to come in and deliver at the level you need? 
• What should they have achieved in their first 3 months, 1 year?

By starting with the work first, before I get into the target candidate profiles, I’ll be able to better recommend profiles from different industries, companies, schools, and backgrounds. Without this understanding of the work, I’m stuck taking notes, and — potentially — could get lost in a world of keywords and biases that have nothing to do with someone’s ability to DO THE WORK.

Fourth, and most importantly, allowing an “ideal” candidate profile into the conversation — the notion that there’s ONLY ONE perfect candidate — crushes your chances at bringing in real diversity into your org. It reinforces the very thing so many of us are trying to address — that there are actually MULTIPLE backgrounds and experiences that can be successful in this kind of role. True Talent Advisor recruiters are working hard to widen the aperture and get hiring managers to lose this homogenous, singular success profile. This is what will help diversify their teams. And we are KILLING our ability to do that if we accept an “ideal candidate profile” request, and we’re the CAUSE of our own problem if we’re the ones framing the first question — as I did in my early years —as: “What’s your ideal candidate profile?”

We must stop that. Please. It’ll make such a huge difference.

We have this incredible opportunity — early in the process, during our kickoff/strategy meeting — to not only make the case for diversity, but also to start a new search off with a core assumption that there are many potential success profiles, including different educational backgrounds, different target companies (outside of our normal 2-3), and different experiences. And there are different sources (outside of referrals from our homogenous teams and usual sources) that will generate those quality candidates.

I believe talent is equally distributed, but access and opportunity is not. And a lot of our work to enact that belief comes early in the process with the job description requirements, the first conversation around target candidate profiles, and our early calibration on “what good looks like.” We can champion diversity and open up our opportunities to all kinds of amazing talent if we can shift from “ideal target candidate profile” to “multiple success profiles” in our thinking, our words, and our actions.

These are far from normal times, and organizations are finding they have to navigate virtually every aspect of their business operation differently, including—perhaps especially—the hiring process.

Despite many businesses being closed or reducing operations, there are still a wide range of companies that are adding to their workforce during the pandemic. Doing so presents some unique challenges.

But Elizabeth Mye, SVP of global Human Resources with cloud communications provider Intermedia, says there are a number of best practices companies can follow to boost their effectiveness in recruiting and interviewing during the COVID-19 pandemic. In truth, these same best practices will apply long after the pandemic has passed.

Coach Hiring Managers to Identify Blind Spots

We all have them: misperceptions and misconceptions, often unknown to us, that can cause us to overlook top talent. Mye says, “The pressure of filling a resource quickly to cover the urgent business need detracts from many hiring managers’ ability to have clarify in finding the right new team member. Many hiring managers are in such a hurry that they don’t stop to reflect past what the current skill requirements are for the job.”

Learning and development (L&D) staff can play an important role in teaching hiring managers to understand their potential blind spots and related biases.

Identify and Rank Top Skills Needed for the Position

“Hiring is difficult enough, never mind adding in this COVID-19 pandemic, 100% remote work, and the stresses of keeping things going,” says Mye. Having clarity is critical, she adds, especially when many of these decisions are being made without the ability to physically meet the individuals being considered.

She recommends coaching hiring managers to answer the following questions:

• What skills and experience will not only solve for the current business need but also take us to the next level to meet future goals?
• What is missing from the team? Consider type of experience, personality, leadership, gender, ethnicity, energy, and working style.
• Have I truly considered internal candidates? Could I shift the work to provide a high-potential worker with an opportunity?
• Are there unique backgrounds I should consider that would bring something new to the company that we don’t currently have?

Conduct a Lot of Interviews

That may seem a bit counterintuitive, especially in these hectic times, but putting the candidate before a number of people can help you make better decisions, Mye suggests.

“Seeing how a candidate responds during the interview process with iteration is critical,” she says. “It provides a real time way of seeing how the candidate responds, learns, and adapts.” This can help both the candidate and the company understand if there is a mutual fit and alignment.

Instill Rigor and Discipline in the Interview Process

This is particularly important now, as the hiring process for so many companies has changed significantly. “Interviewing remotely requires great coordination and predictability in order to ensure that the candidate has an amazing candidate experience,” says Mye. She recommends the following:

• Ensure that several virtual interview rooms have been set up and are available to run multiple and concurrent interviews.
• Validate that the interviewers are set up properly (technical connection, professional interview background, focused interview strategy and behavioral interview questions, uninterrupted interview time, note taking, and promptness to the interview).
• The recruiting administrator should monitor and check in to make sure interviewers are prepared and ready at the time of their interview.
• Conduct roundtable debriefs after interviews are completed. This step is really important for aligning the assessment and calibration of the fit, says Mye.

Ask Questions Designed to Assess Ability to Work Remotely

Not everyone can work remotely as effectively—and independently—as others. While many companies have been forced to have their employees work from home, even if it wasn’t optimal, further assessment of these skills should be done when hiring new candidates.

Mye suggests asking some cultural behavioral interview questions like:

• Help me understand when you’ve worked 100% remotely. What did you put in place to help you manage your work? What difficulties did you run into?
• Have you worked in distributed teams? How did you build connections/relationships with teammates and key stakeholders?

Mye adds that it’s also important for interviewers to share information about the company culture and their own experiences. “In a 100% remote workforce, this is critical so the future employee will understand how they can become involved, feel connected and supported within the environment.”

Conduct Rigorous Reference Checks

We all understand the importance of reference checks but still sometimes fail to be as thorough as we should. While this seems like an obvious best practice, Mye says that references are often overlooked.

“This is a critical step that can help fill in the gaps for any unanswered questions and can help seal the deal to confirm whether the candidate will be a good fit for the role,” she adds.

Don’t Move Too Quickly

While you may be anxious to get somebody on board, it’s never a good idea to rush the process. “Time and time again I see hiring managers rush to get feedback in a disjointed way so they can make a quick decision,” says Mye, noting that this is often the case when they believe they’ve found “the” candidate.

But, she stresses that “conducting candidate debrief roundtable sessions provides the balance needed through multiple interviewer perspectives.”

Gaining these inputs from everyone who has interacted with the candidate can help avoid the potential for bias that often emerges, however unintentionally.

Mye says that debriefing sessions “allow for shared impressions that further uncover patterns of confirmation, impressions and concerns of the candidate interactions.”

What resonates with candidates in this unprecedented hiring environment is “consistency in the candidate experience, and interviewers who are authentic and advocate in helping the candidates truly understand what embodies the company culture,” says Mye.

“If the hiring manager has taken the time to truly know what they are looking for in a candidate, has developed an interview plan and strategy, defined interviewers and focus on technical and cultural fit, this will resonate with the candidate that the company is professional, organized and transparent,” Mye adds.

“Everything that’s happened has just given me a fire to do what I want to do now!”

I’ve been blown away by the number of times I’ve heard some version of this from high-achievers in tons of different industries since this pandemic began. While the pandemic has created new levels of uncertainty, for a select few, it’s also ignited a desire to finally take the leap into a career they know will be more fulfilling. 

If you’re one of those corporate professionals wanting to transition into a new career right now, the idea of making a career change can be both exciting and daunting. You might be wondering how to stand out from the crowd or how to show employers you have what it takes to succeed in your new industry. 

But don’t let those questions keep you up at night any longer. Here are five steps to successfully change careers right now. This advice has helped my clients transition from PR to HR, sales to marketing, editorial to e-commerce, tech to non-profit, and a slew of other career changes. 

Step One: Become aware of your options

Rather than jumping headfirst into your job search and saying, “I’m open!” you need to become aware of the various companies, roles, and opportunities available that align with your expertise and interests before you decide to pivot. Doing so will give you a clear focus and will help you make the best-informed decision about the right next step for you. When you take a step back to become aware of your options, you’ll often discover that there are so many different ways to segue into a new industry than you initially expected. 

Step Two: Change your story

You’ve likely spent the last few years immersing yourself in your current industry, and you’re probably used to explaining your experience and accomplishments in a certain way that resonates with that specific industry. But, now that you’re ready to make a change, you have to change your narrative too. This is a challenge for almost every person I’ve helped successfully change careers. But, breaking up with your current industry is a must. 

This means creating a new brag box that emphasizes your value and showcases the unique perspective you bring from your previous roles and industry. It also means breaking up with the language and jargon you used to describe your experience and adopting the language your new industry uses so that you have a better chance of clearly communicating your relevant expertise. 

Step Three: Tap into your unique value

Even if you become aware of your options and change your story, that’s not enough. You also need to know how to tap into your unique and undeniable value. For instance, I had a client who wanted to transition from finance to marketing and felt that her finance background was going to hold her back. But, once she got clear on her options and tapped into her unique value, she quickly discovered that her finance background gave her a leg up for the senior marketing roles she wanted. She realized, along with her marketing chops, she knew better than most typical marketing candidates how to analyze and forecast P&L, how to drive financial growth, and how to identify opportunities to improve business performance.

I call this leverage versus liability. You have to get clear on how to leverage your not-like-everyone-else experience so that companies see it as an asset rather than a liability. 

Step Four: Authentically connect with people in the industry

Part of successfully landing a new role in a new industry as quickly as possible means not waiting for opportunities to fall in your lap. If you’re just submitting your application online and hoping for the best, you’re limiting yourself. Search for people on LinkedIn who work in the industries and roles you’re interested in and build mutually beneficial relationships with them. When done the right way, you’ll not only gain new friends in your new industry who want to help you succeed, you’ll also learn even more insider ways to stand out and show up as a top candidate in your job search. 

Step Five: Don’t assume you have to settle 

The biggest misconception I see from high-achievers eager to make a career change is that they mistakenly believe they have to take a step back or start from the bottom to do it. So, rather than considering how they can make a lateral move or even level up in their new industry, they only apply for entry-level or junior positions. 

Don’t make the mistake of assuming you have to crawl in the door to change careers, especially when you already have years of valuable experience that could be beneficial to the next industry. One of my clients, Chelsea, made this mistake and quickly learned that she was playing too small. After following these steps, she went from working in higher education to landing an amazing role at CBS, doing exactly what she wanted to do.

If you’re willing to take the time to become aware of your options, change your story, tap into your unique value and connect with new people, you’ll find, just like my clients have, that you can successfully transition into a new career even now, without having to settle. 

Entrepreneurs and leaders often complain that there are “no good salespeople” available in their market. Maybe you’ve muttered that yourself. But even if the salespeople you hired didn’t produce good results, the truth is that there are good salespeople in every market! As a leader, it’s your responsibility to attract them and get their best performance.

The best way to do that is to understand your own beliefs: why is it that you (and others) think there are no good salespeople?

Hiring Mistakes

One reason you struggle to hire good salespeople may be because you believe every candidate who lists a sales role or two on their resume knows how to sell. Sure, some of those employees may have the expertise and experience to succeed in a sales role. But it’s more likely that they were never properly trained and haven’t done much to learn the craft on their own.

Job history gives you a clue, but you must ask the right questions to determine each candidate’s true competencies. B2B sales have changed dramatically in the last decade, so it’s no longer enough to speak well and have an upbeat, outgoing personality. Instead, look for workers with true business acumen: the ability to lead the buyer in a process that helps them make the right decision for their business, and the maturity to manage an ever-larger number of stakeholders.

Unless you have a hiring process and a competency model to measure potential salespeople against, you’ll keep believing good salespeople are rare— and the ones you do hire will probably prove you right.

Compensation Mistakes

The most expensive salesperson is the one who works on straight commission. A lot of entrepreneurs use commission payments to cover up hiring mistakes or to avoid paying low producers, but that approach is ultimately self-defeating. The “cheap” salespeople, the ones who don’t earn many commissions, are incredibly expensive when you consider the deals they lose or never even create.

On the other side of the coin, hiring an excellent salesperson on straight commission means paying them a lot more money than you expected, especially over time as their build sales. This almost always ends with the salesperson moving on because their employer believe they are “expensive.”

Instead, develop some sort of base salary and commission structure that is competitive enough to attract and retain the talent you need. Getting compensation wrong will reinforce the belief that it’s hard to find— not to mention keep— good salespeople.

Resource Mistakes

Salespeople often complain that their last company offered them no sales training, no development, and no coaching. Few are ever provided with a sales process or playbook that would guide their activities and help them to be effective in every sales conversation with their prospective clients. Instead, they are left to their own devices to succeed or fail, believing to the bitter end that they are solely responsible for their own success.

Here’s the truth: you are responsible for providing your sales force with the mindset, the skillsets, and the toolkits they need to succeed. Otherwise, even talented salespeople will struggle to compete and win new opportunities. By investing strategically in professional resources, including training and development, you’ll get far more value for your salespeople’s salaries.

Leadership Mistakes

A high-performing salesperson or sales force needs a strong leader, one with the knowledge and experience to lead a sales force. One young salesperson recently shared that he was having a tough time selling in the current environment. When I asked him how his sales leader was doing, he mentioned similar difficulties: they both think selling is really difficult and they’re both struggling to figure out how to sell their service.

The leader was hoping a salesperson would be able to help them sell, while the salesperson expected his leader to be able to teach him what he needed to succeed in his new role.

Sales roles have immense autonomy but demand equal measures of discipline and accountability, so most people who fail when hiring salespeople share a laissez-faire approach to leading a sales force. Simply put, you can’t expect to hire great salespeople if you are not prepared to provide them with a great sales leader, one who knows how to help them grow, develop, and succeed in sales.

There are always good salespeople looking for work, but unless you know how to identify them, attract them, and provide them with what they need to create and win new opportunities, you will struggle to build a sales force— and you will lose precious time and revenue you need to grow your business.

This article provides four questions that you can ask a sales manager to quickly judge if he or she is a great sales manager, or not. If you currently are a sales manager, ask yourself these four questions to assess your own sales management skills and areas for improvement.

Do all of your salespeople implement your coaching suggestions?

Recently a sales manager told me that he was extremely frustrated by a salesperson whom he considered to be un-coachable because the salesperson never implemented his coaching suggestions.

Whenever I hear this type of comment, I’m reminded of Stephen Covey’s famous quote:

Every time you think the problem is “out there,” that very thought is the problem.

I probed the sales manager to learn more about his approach to sales coaching. I discovered that, like many mediocre sales managers, he managed his salespeople primarily by asking them what I call “how many” questions. For example:

• How many sales calls did you make?
• How many appointments did you get?
• How many sales did you make last month?
• How many opportunities will you sell this month?

Great sales managers understand that asking salespeople “how many” questions only helps to better understand a rep’s activity level. It really is of no help in understanding the salesperson’s effectiveness in customer meetings.

By focusing primarily on “how many” activities, this manager was ignoring the knowledge and skills that his salespeople needed to learn in order to sell like he once did. “How many” coaching is not really coaching because it leads you to make lousy suggestions to your salespeople like, “you need to make more sales calls.”

Great sales managers understand that if they want their salespeople to implement their coaching, sales managers need to provide salespeople with high-quality sales coaching. And great sales coaching comes from observation, analysis, asking better questions, teaching, and follow-up. The vast majority of your salespeople will be more motivated to implement your coaching when it is more specific and helpful.

When you look at your calendar, have you been allocating your time in a way that is consistent with your highest priorities?

Great sales managers can answer “yes” to this question because they manage themselves in such a way that they are able to spend more time on what’s most important to achieving priority business goals, like improving the team.

Let me share with you one of my sales management consultant’s secrets. When I am called in by a company to work with sales managers, one way I can tell the difference between a great sales manager and an average manager is by looking at their calendar. Great sales managers have a predictable rhythm that includes time allocated for planning, observation, coaching and other key activities. That is, time reserved to work on the “important, but not urgent” tasks that develop a sales team. Mediocre managers do not.

So, I want you to imagine that one month from now I’m going to come work with you for a day. I’m going to ask to look at your calendar. What would I see?

If you knew back then what you know today, would you re-hire every salesperson currently on your team?

What I find interesting about this question is every time I ask it of an audience of sales managers usually only one in 10 managers will raise his or her hand. In other words, 90% of sales managers retain low producing salespeople for far too long.

So, I then ask a follow-up question of those in the audience who didn’t raise their hand—

How long have you known about this sales performance problem?

I’ve heard answers that vary from six months to 12 months to two years.

Great sales managers do not tolerate mediocrity. If you have an underperformer on your team you must face the issue now, not later. It’s quite possible that the person is not well-suited to the sales role, altogether.

You can sound off all you want about your high expectations and the importance that you place on sales excellence. But the lowest-producing rep currently on your sales team sends an unspoken message to everybody else on your team: that this lousy level of sales is actually acceptable to you.

Well, I ask you….is it?

Do you know who your next team leader will be, and do you give that person an extra portion of your sales coaching time?

You are a great sales manager if you can answer “yes!” to this question because you recognize the importance of creating a coaching success story on the team.

No doubt your company’s marketing department publicizes customer success stories. Marketing’s purpose is to motivate prospective customers by providing them with examples of how your existing customers have achieved great success by implementing your company’s solutions.

As a sales team leader, you, too, need a coaching success story. When you create a coaching success story it makes a powerful unspoken statement to everybody else on your team – that if they follow your coaching and leadership they too can achieve breakthrough sales performance. And that’s the mindset your salespeople need to have for you to develop an elite high-performance sales team.

For more helpful suggestions on what it takes to be a great sales manager download my article that won Training Industry’s “Readership Award” as one of their top 10 articles of the year. The article is titled, “5 Things Proactive Sales Managers Do Differently.” Be well!

What is sales culture? And more importantly, what is a successful sales culture, and what does it look like?

Creating a sales culture is no easy task, but it’s one we hear about all the time from our customers. From 100-person sales teams to 5,000-person sales teams, every sales leader wants to feel hustle, buzz, and energy from their sellers, and they know that building a sales culture that promotes those characteristics is the best way to get there.

But it’s a lot harder than it sounds.

And especially, as just about every sales team is currently remote, that challenge becomes even more daunting.

Sales culture, defined

“Culture” refers to a collective belief system that manifests itself as social behaviors and norms for a group of people. But let’s get real and tear that down -- what is the definition of “sales culture?”

I spend a lot of time speaking with sales leaders across industries and employee counts. Many of them are searching for that elusive sales culture,  but just aren’t sure how to cultivate it. So if you are feeling the same way, you’re not alone.

Words that I commonly hear as managers and leaders are describing their ideal sales culture:

• Competitive

• Winning

• Energetic

• Buzz

• Hustle

• No excuses

• Work hard, play hard

• Social

• Challenge

But compare that to what I hear when they talk about their current sales culture:

• Drab

• Boring

• Can’t make people care

• I don’t know what they are doing all day

• Slow

• Lacking energy

• Lazy

• Complacent

The difference between reality and ideal states for sales culture is vast, so let’s unpack exactly how those conversations go a little bit more.

Many of these conversations start like this:

• “Sales culture is that buzz on the floor.”

• “Sales culture is a culture of winning.”

• “Sales culture means that I’ve created a place that people want to come work.”

• “Building a sales culture takes the right people and the right tools.”

• “A great sales culture is one where people are motivated to grind and close deals.”

• “Creating a sales culture is the result of a strong vision and support from leadership”

But then those conversations quickly turn into this:

• “Building a sales culture is tough because it’s so intangible.”

• “How do I even begin to go about creating a sales culture of winning?”

• “How long will it take me to get to the sales culture I want? Do I even have that much time?”

And then this:

• “Why does sales culture even matter? Shouldn’t my reps be motivated by commission?”

• “Does spending time building a sales culture take away from time I should be spending helping close deals?”

• “I used to just be thankful for a job, and sales culture didn’t matter. Why does it matter now?”

So you can see why this is a complex subject that takes some unpacking.

Let’s start with question 1.

Why does sales culture matter?

Sales is a competitive field. A-players are known not only within their own organizations, but throughout their industries, and they routinely are poached for higher bases, larger commissions, and better incentives. One way to keep your sellers engaged and loyal is simply by creating a sales culture that resonates with their key values. After all, they are spending the majority of their waking hours working for you. Keep in mind the Golden Rule -- treat others as you would like to be treated. Show your team that you’re working for them, and you’ll see that effort reciprocated to you.

Additionally, as younger generations enter the salesforce in greater numbers, the definitions of a great place to work have shifted. It’s no longer the 9-to-5, cubicle-based sales culture that many of us grew up with. Now, sales is about relationships, humanity, and hustle. It’s about the perks of working hard in an office that still knows how to have a good time. Visit any sales team in the Bay area, and you’ll see foosball tables, dogs at work, and flavored water machines. You’ll also hear the famous “buzz” that is so coveted in sales organizations.

Lastly, those who move into sales management positions are just….good people who want to provide a great experience and sales culture for those following in their footsteps. Most of them are promoted from front-line selling roles, so they know what it takes to move to the top, and they know how hard that is to do when you don’t believe in your company or your management. 

How does this change as teams go remote?

Now, more than ever, building a sales culture that resonates with your sellers is critical to the success of your organization. As “the floor” is no longer an option, sales leaders must find other ways to keep sellers motivated, hustling, and fulfilled at work. But how do you do that when you are not face-to-face?

It turns out the same rules for creating a sales culture apply as when we were all in the office together:

• Be transparent about clear, S.M.A.R.T. goals and expectations

• Hold all team members (including yourself) accountable to the grind

• Figure out what motivates them….then do that

• Make sure you recognize positive behavior and milestone achievements

• Put development of your team front and center

Since it takes a little more effort to reach people while remote, this is where software can come into play.

What does building a sales culture look like?

Before we dive into creating a sales culture, we need to set our vision so we know what we’re going after. A successful sales culture can look like this:

• Reps are motivated to work hard because they are held accountable and are offered appropriate incentives

• Great behavior is rewarded and recognized, and negative behavior is immediately addressed in private

• Turnover is low

• Sellers are invested in the vision of the business and understand how their own actions impact the bottom line

• Open, honest communication between sellers, and between management and sellers, is the norm

• Above all, team members enjoy coming to work

Key Components of a Successful Sales Culture

There are a few key components that sales managers and leaders should remember while working on building a sales culture for their teams.

1. Transparency

The foundation for developing a world-class sales culture is transparency into progress against goals, objectives, and KPIs. Here is the thing -- we feel good about ourselves at work when we know we’re doing a good job. That means we feel stable in our careers, employment, and decisions, and it also means we know the impact we are having on the world around us. It frees our minds up to focus on getting better results every day.

And without frequent feedback loops on how we’re doing, we lose that freedom to focus on getting better -- and instead focus it on questioning and insecurity.

Ask yourself if you’d rather have a team of bold, confident sellers -- or one of sellers questioning their every move. For most of us, the choice is clear.

Using tools like leaderboards, dashboards, and easy access to performance and activity metrics helps sales leaders maintain access to that transparency AND deliver that same transparency to the team. 

Sellers can see their progress against goals and pick up the steam when they see they are falling behind their KPIs. And it really gets fun when they see peers pulling ahead -- and then they do what it takes to beat them.

The same goes for managers and leaders of sales organizations. Transparency into team performance helps them understand when and where to step in proactively to keep their team members on track and focused on the right KPIs, and it also helps them know which tools to use to get their sellers running in the right direction. Sometimes a 1:1 coaching session is what a seller needs to refocus their efforts, and sometimes throwing a fast blitz or competition in the mix is what the team needs to re-energize.

One of our customers uses data transparency in just this way. As leader of her sales operations organization, she gets an automated alert at 11am every day, filling her in on her SDR team’s productivity. If they have not hit their volume and efficiency metrics by that point, she puts a $25 Amazon gift card on the line and lets them run after it. Additionally, she can see WHO is falling short, so she spins up quick 1:1s to get a sense of what is challenging them, enabling her to proactively remove blockers before they throw her team’s numbers off. Now that is using transparency to drive a healthy sales culture!

2. Accountability

Holding others accountable can be tough. It can mean having challenging conversations, talking about difficult topics, or even feeling like you are calling people out.

But it also is a foundational element to creating a healthy, robust sales culture. Holding sellers accountable to commitments means that the entire team knows that everyone is pulling their weight, which results in greater trust between team members. When some sellers are pushed hard and others are allowed to slide, an environment of resentment starts to build, which ripples out through the rest of the organization.

Holding sellers accountable does not always have to mean they are doing a bad job. Rather, it means that expectations and commitments are clearly defined to managers and team members up front, and that every effort is made to stay transparent on progress against those commitments throughout via frequent feedback loops.

One of the hardest things about building a successful sales culture is the accountability piece, because who has time to stay top of of each individual seller’s goals and progress? For many, that means it falls by the wayside -- until big problems emerge. 

So how do you hold your teams accountable to their activity and objective goals before it becomes a problem?

Many sales leaders rely on systems designed to help them automate pieces of this puzzle. Systems that track sellers’ and teams’ goals for you, surfacing progress and problems proactively, make a huge impact on how leading sales managers run their teams. These systems can be the difference between a frazzled sales leader pulling their hair out with CRM reports and spreadsheets, and one that sees where to focus quickly and spend his or her time coaching, motivating, and developing team members -- the place where they can provide the most value to their teams.

3. Motivation

Remember that what motivates YOU may not necessarily be the same thing that motivates your team. Listen to them and ask questions to find out what they are willing to work for.

Some may care more about financial gain than others. Some may love the flexibility of a gift card, while others may enjoy bespoke gifts that show thought. There is a rising trend in offering experiences as incentives. We have one customer who offers two tickets to the Superbowl every year. With remote work becoming the norm, we’re seeing leaders get more creative with their incentives -- for example, our SDR team now offers one “free” day off to anyone who achieves 150% of their goal.

And don’t neglect the importance of competition in motivating ambitious sellers to win. Getting creative with contests can help keep that energy up and drive the sales culture you’re looking for.

We always recommend to mix up your competitions to keep goals fresh. While individual-based competitions are great for helping each seller reach his or her goals, team-based competitions often drive the conversation and reliance on each other that is critical when creating a sales culture. If you envision a sales culture with conversation and that coveted “buzz,” running team-based competitions is a great place to start.

Can Empathy be taught?  Empathy has always been a necessary part of a successful sale.  Heck, I believe it’s a necessary part of being human, having happy relationships, being good at your job and leading a full life.  Before COVID-19 happened, empathy was taken for granted.

Now, however, in the midst of the pandemic, with the economy struggling and businesses feeling the pressure to keep selling, empathy has become the star of the show, the central tenant to every sales strategy.  Every marketing and sales strategy starts and ends with “sell with empathy”.

First, let’s start with the definition of empathy.  Merriam-Webster defines empathy as “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner”.

More simply, in To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch says “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Turns out there are several techniques that can be used to train what researchers call “cognitive empathy”.

1. Practice listening. When talking with another person one-to-one on the phone, or attending a Zoom meeting, how much of your time is spent listening verses rushing to contribute to the conversation?  When we have conversations going on inside our heads, we are not actually listening to the person who is speaking.  Practice listening through role-playing.  Set up each person with another for a one-to-one, face-to-face conversation.  One person talks at a time and the other person listens until their partner is done speaking.  There should be no interruptions, no verbal or non-verbal signals given until the speaker is done talking.  The person playing the listener role does their best to understand rather than listening to reply.
2. Repeat back. This technique uses paraphrasing and feedback to determine if the person who was listening accurately understood the person who was speaking.  Again, this can be done in a role-playing situation by setting-up mock conversations.  Once the speaker completes their story, the person who is listening paraphrases what they think they heard.  Then, if the listener didn’t capture the speaker’s sentiments accurately, the speaker relays the conversation again until the listener understands.  This technique relies on both roles listening carefully to the other.
3. Look for commonalities. This exercise can be done without a partner.  Sit alone and think about the different people you come into contact with during the course of a typical day.  It could be the mail carrier, the guy who bags your groceries, the barista who makes your coffee, or a co-worker you don’t know well.  Make a list of the things you may have in common with these people.  For example, they may root for the same sports team, they may like the same restaurants, their kids may attend the same school.  Finding commonalities brings people together and is a pathway to a more empathetic perspective.
4. Stoke curiosity for others. When you are waiting in line or waiting for a friend to show up, instead of burying your nose in your phone, look up at the people around you.  In your mind, make up stories about what the people around you are doing, thinking and feeling.  Use body language, dress style and actions to build the stories.  Empathy grows when we expand our focus to the world at large, rather than getting caught up in our own stuff.

Some sales methodologies are more conducive to integrating empathy than others.  As a sales leader, the trick is finding the right methodology for each team member and then coaching them on how to build empathy into their process.

What techniques have been helpful in injecting more empathy to your sales approach?

Well, I think it’s safe to say that it doesn’t look like COVID is going away anytime soon.

Our team has been working from home for just over four months now. It’s crazy to think about that, even as I type this.

I think we all feel the transition to remote life has been two fold – great in some ways, not great in others. Not having to commute is at the top of my list. Just getting those couple of hours back each day makes a huge difference in my overall happiness and work-life balance.

As far as the downsides go, I miss seeing my team each day. Yes, we see each other on Zoom calls, but it’s different when you get to each lunch together and casually chat about everyday life. But alas, we do what we have to do when a pandemic hits.

Having a good culture is the lifeblood of a company. For many millennials like myself, it’s a make-it or break-it when it comes to choosing where to work next.

But like taking care of a plant, you don’t put it in a pot, water it once, and call it good. You have to continue to nourish it for it to grow.

Because of this, we decided to get together a couple of weeks ago and discuss what it would look like to continue to invest in our remote working culture. We talked about what’s been going well, what hasn’t, and what could be improved moving forward.

I found this process to be extremely valuable and wanted to share it with you as an example you can take back to your organization.

To start, we went back to the basics. We focused heavily on our values and how our culture supports them. You may have seen these before, but at Heinz Marketing, our values are:

• Results-driven
• Generous
• Creative
• Curious
• Proactive
• Respectful

We strive to make sure everything we do revolves around these values, from our interactions with each other to our interactions with clients. We even have a tradition of “helmet stickers” (like in high school/college football) to call out accomplishments made by individuals on our team who model our values.

Next, we took a look at our best practices for internal communication. Obviously, when working from home, we aren’t able to turn our chair around to ask our neighbor a question. So we talked through how to go about asking quick questions, internal reviews of client deliverables, and methods for giving and receiving feedback. This got everyone on the same page, cleared up any confusion, and allowed us to establish a more concrete process. We were also able to agree to err on the side of over-communicating, versus under-communicating. For us, this included setting our status on Slack as “away” if we planned to be away from our computer for more than an hour, or “heads down” if we are preoccupied with a project and/or don’t have extra bandwidth.

Along with talking through our preferred communication styles, we also dug into our communication tools (primarily Slack and Zoom). In this process, we evaluated whether or not we were taking full advantage of the tools we use everyday and all they have to offer. This ended up being super beneficial, as we discovered a few features we hadn’t used previously that could make our lives easier. The one we were most surprised to find out was we can actually make 1:1 calls on Slack (you’re welcome).

Lastly, we discussed feelings around video calls. While we want to see each other regularly, we also wanted to be cognizant of times where we just don’t feel like being on video. This could be because we’re finishing up our lunch, or have already had quite a few video calls that day and are just tired. Being on video might not seem like work, but does require more energy to be “on” than simply being in a meeting in the office. We all agreed we would try to be on video as much as possible but be okay if not everyone is every single time.

In the end, the exercise of collaborating and talking through our company culture was promoting a good culture in it of itself. That’s the goal.

The gist of it is this: company culture doesn’t have to take a back seat just because we aren’t able to be together physically. We can and should continue investing in each other and promoting the environment we want to be working in.

Hopefully, you found some of these tips helpful as you continue to navigate working from home in these weird times. And let us know if you feel like there’s anything we missed! We’d love to hear from you.

When was the last time you checked out how true sales leaders coach? Last year? Five years ago? If so, it’s time for a wake-up call. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how we all work.

Your reps need coaching from you more than ever before. Craig Wortmann, a clinical professor of entrepreneurship and founder of the Kellogg Sales Institute, says, “Coaching is always important, of course, but now is make-or-break time.”

Maintain Motivation

To be a true sales leader during these challenging times is to stay in touch with what’s happening. If your reps continue to work from a remote location and call on prospects with email and video tools, they could be losing motivation. We have no guarantees that the business world will return to what it was before the pandemic and some of your team members may be struggling with that uncertainty. Reps who thrive on personal interaction, large group meetings and travel could be suffering from isolation.

Remember to reach out on a daily basis to see how these reps are doing. A quick video chat can work wonders. Some reps may tend to withdraw under challenging conditions. If you have that same tendency, set reminders on your calendar to reach out on a regular basis. This may sound like a ton of work. It is: unless you use a sales coaching management platform.

The best sales coaching management platforms contain the results of the sales skills assessment you and your reps have taken. With this data, you’ll know how you and every one of reps behave, at work and under stress. As a manager, it’s your responsibility to maintain this awareness and to change your behavior to give your reps the support they need.

Speaking of support, reps need to feel the love right now. Our economic situation means they are encountering closed doors and stalling tactics. They may start thinking that nothing they can do will make a difference when it comes to the bottom line. This kind of thinking will be especially prevalent among your most impatient reps. Remind them that they can focus on delivering value to prospects and accounts. Orders may be slow in coming now, but prospects and accounts will remember who has been reaching out and trying to help. When economic conditions improve, your reps will be in a good position to close new business.

For some reps, productivity may continue to take a hit this fall. Instead of sending their kids off to school, they’re faced with more months of monitoring academic assignments and breaking up sibling quarrels while trying to work. Don’t ignore the situation. Acknowledge it. Offer to help them set up a work schedule that allows them to succeed.

Give Feedback

Your reps have always needed your feedback. Previously, some of this feedback happened in informal settings — in the break room or on the way to lunch. Your rep may have been waiting for the ‘right’ time to ask you a question. This waiting may have been motivated by their fear of looking ‘foolish’ or not wanting to bother you.

If they’re sitting in a remote work location, they may not ask you about something they want to know. When your reps are in a situation like this, they need more feedback from you. Feedback is a key aspect of how true sales leaders coach. With a sales coaching management platform, you can monitor every step of your reps' sales process efficiently.

When a rep needs to learn how to handle buyers who want to negotiate on the price of a contract, you might first coach them on putting together a proposal that shows value. In the next coaching assignment, before they meet with the prospect, ask them to summarize what they’ve said in the past to contacts who ask for a price break. Have them store their answer in the sales coaching management platform so you can review it together during your next session. You might also ask them to summarize a sales scenario when they successfully closed a deal for the original price. After reviewing their answers, praise them for the work they done so far, and encourage them to emphasize the right aspects during their upcoming conversation.

How True Sales Leaders Coach

Storing the details of your sessions in your sales coaching management platform allows you to track the progress of each sales rep. True sales leaders coach by bringing out the best in each of their sales reps.

When COVID-19 first hit the United States in March, many sales organizations thought the adjustments they had to make would be temporary. But as the crisis continues, it’s becoming increasingly clear that many of the changes brought on by the pandemic will be permanent.

Mary Shea, Principal Analyst at Forrester, addressed this in a recent Sales Hacker webinar.

“Many, if not most of these trends were already in play before COVID hit… I thought these trends were going to play out over the next 24 to 36 months, but now I think they’ll play out over the six to 12 to 18 months.”

Here are five significant sales trends that are here to stay and are only being accelerated in their adoption due to the current environment.

Listening to Your Customers Has Never Been More Important

Sales has always been about paying attention to your customers’ needs, but the current situation has made listening paramount. In LinkedIn’s recent State of Sales report, they revealed that the top trait buyers wanted from salespeople was active listening.

However, sales managers often don’t prioritize this trait when hiring salespeople.

While it’s the most desired trait that buyers want, it didn’t even crack the top five characteristics sales managers require from their sales teams.

Mary Shea said active listening is even more important in the current climate because the opportunities for listening to buyers face-to-face have disappeared.

“We’re not walking the halls of our corporate clients anymore,” Shea said on the webinar. “… You’ve got to roam the digital halls on social, right?”

One way we can demonstrate that we’re listening to buyers and are trying to fulfill their needs is to speak their language.

Every company has its own corporate word culture. When we talk with the buyer, we should frame the solution in the customer’s corporate language, not ours. When we talk about our solution, we should use the word that our buyer uses internally to discuss their priorities and strategy.

So, do your research. Learn your buyer’s language, and make sure they’re feeling heard when you talk with them.

The Difference Between Inside and Outside Sales is Disappearing

The distinction between inside and outside sales is becoming less obvious. “You’re already seeing folks remotely closing seven-figure deals,” according to Shea.

Sales Hacker’s Scott Barker put it this way,

“Field sales teams have always hung their hat on, ‘No, no, no — you can’t sell this digitally. For six-figure deals, we need to go shake hands.… It’s being put to the test. Can it all be done digitally?”

Some of our customers at LinkedIn have been closing huge deals without ever meeting buyers in person.

And while there are some sectors where the complexity of the solution will require on-site visits, as long as businesses have needs to solve and sellers have solutions to those issues, big deals will continue to happen — whether it’s in-person or in a virtual environment.

The ROI Component of the Deal Is Essential

Right now, we’re seeing budgets cut at about 50% of companies. That means a large number of your potential customers are struggling with budget.

So, when your buyers are in this position, trying to sell them on your product or service’s vision and dream isn’t enough.

Our litmus test is, would this pass muster with the CFO?

In today’s world, that isn’t just a hypothetical. In the webinar, Scott Barker said that sales professionals are seeing more CFOs from the buyer side joining sales calls. He said…

“It’s kind of a double-edged sword. If you’re doing the right things, that’s awesome, because no one can move a deal faster than a CFO. But if you’re doing the wrong things… that (deal) is going to get blown up very, very quickly.”

Sales Professionals Must Act as Advisors

These days, it’s not about winning the deal every time. Of course, we want to win more than we lose, but these interactions are also about earning respect, trust, and ultimately referrals by offering useful advice and acting as a trusted advisor.

It’s not hard to imagine that in the near future, we may have reviews of individual sellers posted by buyers online, similar to reviews of business software offered by platforms such as G2 Crowd.

In the webinar, Barker had this to say…

“[Reviews of salespeople] would reinforce all the good behavior, right? It would hold people really accountable. It also empowers the buyer and the seller. If you’re doing the right things, and you have done your homework, and you’re an industry expert, and people are raving about you, then when you ask for that meeting, people will take one look and say, ‘Yeah, of course, I’m going to learn something.’”

The Buying Committee Grows Increasingly Powerful

It’s no secret that buying committees are growing larger. There are more decision makers and influencers in every deal than ever before, and the trend isn’t likely to stop anytime soon.

But this has caused another change that few people saw coming. As buying committees grow, we’re also seeing turnover increase as well — beyond the typical 20% of annual decision maker turnover.

In the current climate, sales professionals need to be more effective at multithreading and building relationships with as many members of the buying committee as possible.

As Shea put it in the webinar, “I will say the days of the single-thread buyer and the lone wolf seller are well behind us now.”

Prepare for The World of Tomorrow

In such turbulent times, no one knows what tomorrow will bring, but one thing is clear. The salespeople and businesses who keep track of the trends and adjust to their buyer’s needs will come out ahead.

So keep an eye on the winds of business, and keep your business sailing through the storm.